Theologians have a word for this: “accommodation.” The church father Origen, for instance, liked to compare God to a parent talking to his two-year-old, speaking “inarticulately because of the child” since it is impossible for the parent to be understood by the child apart from “condescending to their mode of speech.”2 John Calvin compared God to a nurse caring for an infant. The nurse bends low to speak a language that the infant can understand. Calvin called this “lisping.”3 If you are the proud parents of a newborn, you know what Calvin means. I’ve been in hospitals and seen men the size of
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